


A Little Bit Like Giles

by Thea_Bromine



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Kindness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_Bromine/pseuds/Thea_Bromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is the librarian just another adult, if a rather weird one, or is he actually something better than that? Xander isn’t sure. Season One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Toothache

**Author's Note:**

> I had advice on the differences between British and American English from Elizabeth Marshall, and more specifically on the Californian dental system from whichclothes; any gaping plot holes and misplaced Britishisms remaining are my fault, not theirs.

He couldn’t manage any longer on what he’d got. He’d already been yelled at twice for inattention, once by Miss Lopez and once by Mr Grainger. He hadn’t, though, got any good ideas about what to do next. Willow couldn’t help; his mom didn’t help; his dad wouldn’t help. And those were all his options. There wasn’t anybody else. Whatever he was gonna do, he’d have to come up with it himself.

He was almost past the library before he thought of it. Of Buffy and Mr Giles and hadn’t that been an eye-opener? The whole vampire and Slayer thing, and Buffy fighting, and Mr Giles telling her what to do and sorting it out when it didn’t go so well for her, and Xander and Willow getting involved, and Mr Giles sorting it out when it didn’t go so well for them either _and there was a big first aid kit on the shelf in the office inside the library_.

One quick glance up and down the hall and he slipped inside. Nobody in the library at this time of day... well, nobody much in the library at any time of day. Mr Giles not there either and that was definitely of the good because this was _so_ not something he could explain. Explanations were never, ever, of the good. They took Xander places he didn’t want to go, and they involved his parents and that in turn took Xander places he didn’t want to go either and tended to involve bruises that he didn’t want to think about and never wanted to talk about.

The first aid box was just where he remembered it; it contained... wow. It contained things he didn’t know the use for and some things he did know the use for, sorta – he watched hospital dramas, sometimes – but he hadn’t realised that Mr Giles would know how to use them properly. And he couldn’t see Mr Giles having things in his first aid kit that he didn’t know how to use. He wasn’t sure why he thought that, because the first aid kit at home had stuff in it that he was damn sure neither his mom nor his dad knew how to use, but Mr Giles was different. He had those weird clothes, and he spoke like he had a mouth full of marbles, and he _looked_ like he wouldn’t be able to find his own ass with both hands and a map, but... he knew stuff. And it looked like he knew medical stuff. His first aid kit looked good for anything up to a major highway crash. There was sure to be something in it... there was. He grabbed it, slammed the lid down on the box and shoved it back on the shelf, and turned.

Mr Giles was standing in the doorway watching him, and his expression... Xander was used to people looking mad. Mad was pretty much the default for looking at Xander. But this had a side order of... disappointment? He wasn’t used to disappointment. His stomach flipped: mad was never good and the disappointment...

He didn’t know what to make of the disappointment. Focused on the mad.

“And were you intending to sell those?” That precise English accent, with every word separate, and there was no denying it, that _was_ disappointment. Xander wondered why. Why should Mr Giles be disappointed? He shook his head. Mr Giles just held out his hand, and Xander dipped his head so that his hair swung into his eyes, and dropped the bottle into the man’s palm. Then he looked at his shoes. From the corner of his eye, he could see Mr Giles twist the bottle to examine the label.

“What, then?”

“Got a toothache. Had it since Monday.” Even speaking hurt.

Mr Giles examined him; it felt like being under a magnifying glass.

“I know that your medical system doesn’t work the same way as the NHS, but I was under the impression that the USA did _have_ dentists? Well, I know you do, I’ve been to one.”

What was the NHS? He kept silent.

“Why are you stealing drugs, rather than going to the dentist? Are you afraid of dentists?”

His head came up. “No!” He was... a bit offended. He wasn’t afraid of anything... well, O.K., that was a lie. He was deadly afraid of those vampires and he was learning to be afraid of other things, and if he had understood anything at all about the Hellmouth, he understood that there were way more things to be afraid of than had ever occurred to him before.

Dentists didn’t even qualify.

He wondered if he should be offended that Mr Giles thought he was a thief, and his conscience pointed out unhelpfully that he was.

“Well?”

He looked at the floor some more. Mr Giles changed tack. “I appreciate that an American school may not be run the same way as a British one but does an establishment this size not stretch to a school nurse and a sick-room? Could you not have presented yourself at the office and asked for assistance? Or even come here and asked me?”

The floor continued to exercise its fascination. Asking for help involved explaining bad stuff. And why would he ask Mr Giles?

“Answer me, please.”

It made him jump, and somehow the order did something in his head that made it unthinkable to disobey, however bad it was gonna sound. However much Mr Giles was gonna despise him afterwards.

“Our dentist retired a couple years ago and my dad never chose another one. He hasn’t got insurance. He won’t take me. Said to take some Tylenol and stop whining.”

Mr Giles was looking at him like he was a bug again. “Do children require health insurance? They don’t in the UK.”

Xander thought about trying to explain about insurance, and CHIP, and Medicaid and Medi-Cal, and finding a dentist when you hadn’t got one and didn’t know how to get one and your dad wouldn’t pay for it anyway, or give permission, to someone who didn’t even know all the words, and just shrugged. Mr Giles changed tack.

“How much Tylenol have you taken?”

He shrugged again. “What it says on the pack. Since Monday. But I finished the pack this morning.”

A flash of something crossed Mr Giles’ face. “Do you know what the lethal dose of paracetamol is? Acetaminophen,” he qualified, at Xander's frown. “It’s about sixteen tablets. That’s why they sell it in small packets. It can destroy your liver if it hangs about in the system. And if you’ve got toothache, I don’t suppose you’re eating, are you?”

Xander shook his head. “I... look, I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I... can I go?”

“No.” And indeed, Mr Giles continued to loom in the doorway. Xander hadn’t realised before quite how _big_ the man was. “Come here. Open your mouth.”

“Huh?”

“Show me the tooth.”

“I... that was the bell, I’m supposed to be in class.”

“Come _here_.”

He came. Leaned his head back, opened his mouth.

“Which side? Top or bottom?”

He put a finger up, not touching his cheek; Mr Giles cocked his head to look and put a hand on Xander's jaw to steady him; Xander cried out.

“I, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Yes, I see. You’ve taken the corner off a molar and cracked it across. I’m not surprised it’s painful; you’ll _have_ to see a dentist.” He turned away to the first aid kit. “Have you been taking anything other than Tylenol?”

Xander shook his head, cautiously; the whole world was throbbing and there were tears standing in his eyes.

“Xander, is that the truth? It’s important.”

“I haven’t taken anything else,” he mumbled. It wasn’t, after all, like he’d had the chance.

“Sit down.” Mr Giles waved at a chair, and shook out two pills from a different bottle to the one Xander had found, and then poured half a cup of water from the kettle he kept on the shelf. “Here. Warm water might hurt less than cold. Now...”

“Look, I need to be in class...”

“You’re not going to class.” He was rummaging in the tiny fridge in which he kept the milk for his tea, producing an ice pack, and after a moment, something from the first aid box which looked the same, but which he bent in half twice and then rolled between his hands. “Try those against your cheek. Alternate them, hot and cold, and see if they help. Where should you be now?”

“Biology,” he mumbled, bewildered; Mr Giles went out into the hall, and came back a moment later.

“I’ve sent a message to your teacher; I’ll give you a note later if you need it. Go on, keep those packs against your face. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Bewildered wasn’t the half of it; Xander sat, and did as he was told. The pills, whatever they were, did help; the heat pack and ice pack helped too. The pain eased back into just his jaw, away from the whole-head throbbing which made him so desperate. He didn’t feel quite so sick with it now. The pain had stopped him thinking, had prevented him coming up with a halfway believable tale for Mr Giles. Xander despised himself for being so lame, for just folding and telling the man everything. Now, of course, there was gonna be the mother of all trouble; he _knew_ he needed to see the dentist, he wasn’t that dumb, and he wasn’t clear on how he was gonna get through to Mr Giles that it simply wasn’t an option. If Mr Giles tried... oh God, the man wouldn’t try to call his dad, would he? Suddenly he felt sick again. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He was nothing to do with Xander, not really, he wasn’t a teacher... and anyway half the teachers already knew that it was pointless getting into a fight with Tony Harris. Xander had taken notes home from school until he had learned that it was less bruiseworthy to get Willow to forge his mom’s signature on them. Then he had stopped delivering them and he was damn sure that the same half of the school office staff knew that. Tony Harris didn’t even sign permission slips, specially not the ones which had to come back with money attached. He certainly wasn’t gonna take kindly to a _librarian_ calling him up and telling him to take his son to the dentist. And an _English_ librarian? Xander knew his father’s opinion of anyone who hadn’t been born in the mainland US – and there were large parts of _that_ he didn’t rate. None of this was going anywhere of the good.  There would be a big bust-up and Mr Giles would think the Harrises were even less use than he currently did, and Xander would get into trouble when he went home, for whining to a teacher about his sore tooth, and...

It would almost certainly be better if none of this happened. Best thing would be if Xander felt O.K. and went back to class and...

To think was to do. He rather reluctantly put the ice pack and the heat pack down on Mr Giles’ desk, and scribbled a note. _Felt better, went to class. Thanks. X Harris._ It was all relative; he did feel better than he had done so that wasn’t a lie – he wasn’t sure why he thought that lying to Mr Giles wouldn’t be so smart – and he _definitely_ felt better than he would if his dad threw a big one about him complaining at school.

He made it all the way to the door.

“Leaving already?” enquired Mr Giles affably. How did he _do_ that? How did somebody as big as that manage to move so quietly? He was doing that thing again where he sorta filled the whole doorway; Xander couldn’t just slide past him and escape.

“Yeah. Yeah, I... I felt better. It’s stopped... I felt better. I should go to class, ya know? Thanks for... for everything. I’ll just...”

But Mr Giles put out a single finger, and tapped him, just once, very gently, on the cheek.

There was an awful moment when he thought he might actually pass out and then he was leaning on the wall with tears running down his face, whooping for breath and wondering, with the tiny part of his mind which wasn’t going ‘ow! Ow! FUCKING **OW!** ’ why he had thought it would be a good idea to lie to Mr Giles when he had already told himself that it wasn’t real smart. Maybe it was a Watcher thing? He would ask Buffy some time if she could lie to the man, because he, Xander, being not-the-Slayer, was plainly not up to the job.

“This,” said Mr Giles, not unsympathetically, “is obviously an American version of feeling better, with which I, as a British national, am not familiar. Come inside and explain it to me.”

Xander glared; Mr Giles raised one eyebrow... how did he do that? And why did it cause Xander to turn defeatedly and trail back into the office? The scary pointy finger indicated the chair and he collapsed back into it; the heat pack and ice pack were pushed back across the desk at him, and his note was inspected, judged, and dropped in the waste paper basket.

“You,” said Mr Giles conversationally, “look like death. I saw you this morning when you arrived at school, and I thought you looked overtired. I saw you in the hall just after second period and I wondered if you might be sickening for something. If it weren’t daylight, I would be very much inclined to stake you first and ask questions afterwards. You’re as pale as one of the undead. You have enormous circles under your eyes. You walk as if you’re expecting your head to fall off.” He paused, politely.

“Could go with the staking plan,” muttered Xander miserably.

“Yes, toothache will do that. Why are you so unwilling to allow me to help? If it’s not the dentist you’re afraid of, what is it?”

Xander looked away. He didn’t... he couldn’t...

Mr Giles sighed, and reached for the first aid kit again, taking something from inside it. “Come along.” At the back of the library there was a semi-circle of chairs, not the hard plastic stackables but unmatched cloth-covered cushion-seated ones. Mr Giles lined them up into a makeshift couch, and then produced the thing he had retrieved from the first aid kit, which proved to be a small inflatable pillow. “Lie down. Keep the packs on your cheek. Keep turning them over. I need to make a couple of phone calls, and we’ll see. Where should you be after Biology?”

“History,” mumbled Xander into the pillow. “Mrs Hawthorne.”

“I’ll get you excused.”

Xander heard him move away; he was still panicking about his father and what he would say but well, Mr Giles was making it plain that Xander wasn’t in charge here, and it didn’t look like there was much Xander could do about it. It was sorta nice, in a way – it was nice to be looked after, and even if Mr Giles... His voice was exasperated and if Xander just listened to the words, he was getting a scolding, but what Mr Giles was _doing_ didn’t match up with that. He was being kind. Maybe it was as well that his words _were_ sharp, because Xander didn’t know if he could have coped with somebody being... It would still all go to hell if he called Xander's dad, and Xander sorta felt bad that he hadn’t warned him but...


	2. Dental Treatment

He would have liked to go to sleep; he hadn’t slept well since Sunday night, but even with the drugs and the ice pack, he couldn’t quite manage it. He let his mind wander, though, listening drowsily to the noises of the school until the bell made him jump. A minute later, Mr Giles appeared.

He was mad. Xander wasn’t sure how he could tell, because the man didn’t _look_ different. He wasn’t stamping about like Xander's dad when he was blowing up, he wasn’t breathing hard the way Mr Folstom next door did when he was losing his temper. His lips were maybe a little thinner than before, his shoulders a little squarer... Xander swallowed. Mr Giles was a _big_ man. He hid it; Xander wondered vaguely if the up-tight English clothes were a deliberate way to hide the fact that the man was both tall and broad, by making you look at the tweed and not at the guy inside it.

And the guy inside it was not just a little bit mad. He was really, really mad. Xander scrambled upright. He had _known_ that this was all gonna go to hell. He had _known_ that somewhere down the line, somebody was gonna yell at him. Well, his dad was, that was a given, and Mr Giles... Mr Giles had wanted to yell about the drugs and hadn’t, he had given Xander a chance... he had given Xander _every_ chance to explain. But now he was really mad, and Xander's experience with men who were really mad wasn’t good.

“I couldn’t get you an appointment earlier than half three, I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“The dentist. Half past three. I told them it was an emergency.” His accent was even more clipped than usual. He _was_ mad. But not, it seemed, with Xander. Weird. And even weirder: he wasn’t letting being mad spill over onto Xander.

“You got... you fixed... you called... my dad...”

Mr Giles’ mouth relaxed suddenly, and he smiled. It wasn’t at all a nice smile, Xander thought with a shiver. It looked like... it looked disturbingly like some of the vampires Xander had seen. It looked dangerous.

“Your father has given me permission to take you to my dentist.”

“Huh _?”_ Like... _huh_? At least, just... _huh_? Part of his brain processed the sentence and yeah, it was all good, he knew all those words. The rest of his brain had a does-not-compute moment. “Like... what did he say?”

Mr Giles gave that smile again. “He said that if I felt such concern for your dental health, I should feel free to make whatever arrangements I saw fit.”

Xander thought about that, and translated it from British-Librarian-speak into real. “He said that if you were so bothered about it, you could deal with it yourself.”

“With a little more by way of local colour, but yes. He said that.”

Xander slumped a little. For half a moment he had almost dared to hope. “Mr Giles... he was being sarcastic. He didn’t mean it.”

Mr Giles snorted dismissively. “Call _that_ sarcasm? You’re missing the point, Xander. He _said_ it. He said it loudly enough that even without the speaker-phone, Mrs Cochrane in the office heard him say it. I have a witness that he said it, that he gave me permission to take you to the dentist.”

Xander looked away. “You can’t. He... he won’t pay for it.”

Mr Giles sat down beside him. “That is not your problem.”

“Yeah, but it is, because...!”

Mr Giles raised one hand. “It is not your problem. You have warned me, thank you. I understand your warning. If I choose to take the risk, that is my decision.” His lips thinned again. “Either way, your conscience is clear and _it is not your problem._ ”   

“But...!”

“I am not going to argue with you, Xander. I don’t really want to play the ‘you’re under age and the adults are entitled to make decisions for you’ card but this is between your father and me and you will not change my mind. You have a dental appointment at three-thirty and you will attend it.” He hesitated. “The surgery staff _may_ be under the impression that I am your step-father and that I dislike your father and am of the opinion that he should have brought you in for treatment days ago. I suggest that unless your conscience is a great deal more tender than I think it is,” he glanced at Xander, and the words _stealing painkillers_ hovered unspoken between them, “you say nothing to contradict it unless asked a direct question.”

“You told them that?”

“I did not. That would have been a lie. I merely... implied some things and allowed them to make some erroneous assumptions.”

Yeah. Mr Giles had lied.

Mr Giles had lied for Xander's sake. That was weird.

The whole set-up was weird.

“Can you eat?”

“Huh? I... no, I don’t think so.”

Mr Giles pursed his lips again, thinking.

“It would be better if you would try. I would be afraid that otherwise, the anaesthetic will make you sick.”

Xander nodded glumly. He knew the man was right, but even the thought of chewing anything made his jaw throb.

“Come on. We’ll put the ice pack back in the fridge and the other one in the kettle to reheat. I need a cup of tea. You need to eat something.”

‘Something’ turned out to be a banana, from Mr Giles’ lunch pack. He had broken it into a bowl, and mashed it with a fork until it was the sort of paste he might have fed to a baby, and then he had passed it to Xander with a spoon and without comment, and Xander had managed to choke it down without moving his jaw much. He’d had a cup of tea, too, mostly milk and sugar, and even though he didn’t like tea much, he admitted sheepishly to himself that he felt better for it.

“Go and lie down again. I’m supervising until three; I’ll come back for you then. Take the packs. Can you manage without any more painkillers? It would probably be better if you can.”

Xander thought about it. “I... Yeah, I think so. Probably.” He really wasn’t certain, but he didn’t want to talk about painkillers, or the contents of the first aid box. That felt a bit like his tooth, like it would be better if he didn’t touch it. Mr Giles gave him a hard stare, but he didn’t push it, just opened the box himself and shook out a single tablet, the same sort he’d given Xander before.

“I’ll leave it here, look, in the saucer. If you really need it, don’t try to be a hero. Come and take it, but try not to unless you must. No other pills, Xander; is that clear?”

He nodded, rather shamefaced, and Mr Giles picked up his folder and his pen and went off without looking back. Xander looked at the tablet for half a minute. Then he laid a pad of paper over the top of the saucer, and went back to his makeshift couch.

He hoped that he would be able to drowse again the way he had before, but he was awake now. Awake and very, very confused. He pulled his feet up onto the chair, hooked his arms around his knees and thought. _Why_ was Mr Giles doing this? Some of it, he guessed, was just that... that Mr Giles thought it really ought to be done. He faced the fact that other people’s parents would have thought so. He knew that Buffy and her mom fought a bit, that Willow’s parents weren’t there as often as perhaps other people might think they should be. Jeff’s parents were religious in some weird way, and were real strict with him; when he and some of his friends had gotten into trouble spray-painting the walls at the mall, there had been half a dozen boys grounded, or with their allowances cut, but Jeff’s dad had taken a belt to him. Still... he couldn’t see Buffy, or Willow, or even Jeff, being three days in pain from a toothache without their parents doing something about it.

It felt disloyal even to think that way. His dad... things were hard at home. His dad couldn’t get a job, or couldn’t keep one. The economy, he said, often, usually swearing about government and bosses and unions and things. It was because of the economy and bosses that there wasn’t enough money at home. If Xander ever thought that the money would go further if his dad drank less of it, and that if he drank less he might hold down a job and get some more money, well, it wasn’t something he could ever say out loud at home, and it wasn’t something he _would_ say out loud anywhere else. His dad _was_ his dad, and Xander wasn’t gonna badmouth him in front of Mr Giles.

But... he rather suspected that he didn’t need to. If Mr Giles had been in the office with Mrs Cochrane, he had probably seen Xander's file, and Xander's file included way too many notes about Tony Harris and what he said and did. And didn’t do. That mad look on Mr Giles’ face, that was almost certainly down to him talking to Tony on the phone. Mr Giles obviously thought that Tony ought to do something about getting Xander to the dentist.

What Xander didn’t get was why Mr Giles thought that if Tony wasn’t gonna do it, he had to. And it was all very well him saying that it wasn’t Xander's problem but...

Only, Xander somehow didn’t feel like arguing about it. He didn’t _like_ it. If Mr Giles was gonna do it... Mr Giles _was_ gonna do it. That was plain enough. Xander could see that he wasn’t gonna win that one. And if Mr Giles was gonna do it, that meant... that meant that...

He’d thought it before, in a vague confused way, but he’d never really allowed himself to put in plainly into words. Tony Harris was a bad parent. Mr Giles knew that. Somehow, the fact that Xander knew that Mr Giles knew was harder to swallow than Xander just knowing himself. Mr Giles had looked at Tony Harris and judged him, and however much Xander _wanted_ to be loyal, to be able to say that his dad didn’t deserve to be found wanting, he couldn’t.

For a moment, he _hated_ Mr Giles. Only... what had the man done to be hated? He had done what Tony Harris should have done. And Xander, with a sudden shift towards adulthood, recognised that he had done it as tactfully as he could. Mr Giles hadn’t criticised Tony directly to Xander; he’d almost made it into a game, a joke, that he had put one over on Tony, and that it was harmless. He’d tried hard not to say to Xander that he was only a kid and should just let the adults get on with stuff, until Xander had backed him into a corner over it. He’d tried not to show Xander that he was mad at Tony Harris. Mr Giles didn’t deserve that Xander should hate him for...

For being a better father to a kid he hardly knew and who had no claim on him, than Xander's own dad.

Xander wondered, painfully, if that realisation would have hurt less if it had involved somebody he knew better, or if it had come later, or earlier. It did hurt. It hurt like his tooth, a nagging pain which he couldn’t ignore. He leaned a little forward and rested his forehead on his knees, and if, by the time Mr Giles came back for him, his eyes were red, well, he hadn’t been sleeping and he was in pain, and Mr Giles didn’t say anything.

He knew that there was something wrong, though. Something more wrong. He glanced at Xander two or three times on their way to his car, as if he was going to speak or was expecting Xander to speak, and once they were in the car he said rather tentatively, “Mrs Polanski – she’s the dentist – is very nice. I hadn’t been a week in the country when one of my fillings fell to pieces, a total mess. I, I thought I was going to lose the tooth completely, but she managed to save it for me. It was a bit, a bit uncomfortable, but nothing worse than that. I, I don’t think you need to worry about anything.”

Xander blinked at him rather stupidly. “I’m not... I’m sure... Yeah. Thanks. But I’m not nervous or... Honestly, Mr Giles, I’m not scared of the dentist.”

Mr Giles smiled at him, a little vaguely. It was odd; in the school he’d been all definite, all decision-guy, and – Xander suddenly realised – he had hardly stammered at all. Now it was like he was nervous. “I, I, when we’re out of school, Buffy just calls me Giles, rather than Mr Giles. You, you and Willow could do that too, if you wanted. Obviously in school...”

“Yeah, I, I’d like that. Thank you.” Oh for godssakes, now Xander was stammering too, but Mr Giles – _Giles_ – was smiling at him again, and slipping the car into a parking space.

“Leave your things; the surgery is just through here.”

They didn’t have to wait long; when the nurse called his name he got up nervously, and Giles, who had been casting rather absently through a two-day-old newspaper, looked up and asked quietly, “Would you like me to come with you, or would you prefer to go on your own?”

He started to say he would be fine, and stuck, unexpectedly; to his horror, his mouth trembled and his voice failed. Giles rose calmly. “It’s all right. You’ve had a bad couple of days, you’ll feel better when this is all sorted out. Come on.” And he set his hand lightly and comfortingly on the back of Xander's neck.

In later life Xander identified that touch, from a man who didn’t touch other people often, as the turning point. His relationship with Giles was never uncomplicated, and was certainly not without its flaws: Xander was frequently irresponsible, confrontational and mouthy; Giles was not always either kind or fair. Nevertheless, it was in response to that one tiny comfort that Xander’s allegiance was transferred totally, irrevocably, and permanently, to Giles.

It was true, Mrs Polanski _was_ nice. She tutted a bit at Xander, not as if she was scolding, but more like she knew how much it must be hurting and she was sorry, and she got the anaesthetic into him real fast, and then checked the rest of his teeth while it took effect. Giles leaned on the wall with his arms folded, watching calmly, and it helped to keep Xander calm too, even when Mrs Polanski gave his jaw a prod, and it twinged and made him jump.

She wrinkled her nose, and gave him some more anaesthetic, and didn’t try to start until his face was absolutely numb; then she was quick with whatever she did. Xander was back on his feet in half of no time, slightly light-headed, a little shaky from the anaesthetic, and embarrassingly worried that he was drooling down his chin. He flinched when the receptionist told Giles the size of the bill, but Giles passed over his credit card without blinking, and Xander added together what Giles had said before with what he thought might be an inability to speak without sounding like the monster from a comedy horror movie, and held his tongue.

Back in the car, Giles turned to him politely. “I, I’ll take you home if you want, but I would prefer to keep an eye on you until the numbness wears off, just to make sure that you’re all right. If you didn’t mind, we, we could go back to my flat – my apartment – and you could have a rest until we’re sure that you’re feeling better. But I’ll run you home if that’s what you want?”

Xander thought about facing his dad with half his face numb, with his mouth not working and his brain full of cotton wool, and shook his head.

“My flat, then? Is that all right?”

He nodded.


	3. Hot Milk with Cinnamon

The apartment was _filled_ with books. No TV, which Xander thought was odd, unless Giles had it in his bedroom, but every surface came with big serious looking books. Giles waved him towards the couch.

“You still look very white; do you drink milk? I mean, not just in tea or coffee, but on its own? Yes?” He disappeared off to one side, into what Xander thought must be his kitchen, and Xander could hear him moving about, and china clattering. Presently Giles came back with his ever-present tea cup, and a mug which he held out to Xander.

“Hot milk, honey and cinnamon. It, it shouldn’t be hot enough to burn you, but be a little careful.”

It was sweet and comforting, and Xander felt himself heavy-eyed almost before he had finished it. Giles retrieved the mug and stood over him. “Now, kick your shoes off and just lie down. Go to sleep if you can. I’ve, I’ve got paperwork to get on with.”

It seemed awfully rude but... he did as he was told, tucking himself down among the cushions and closing his eyes obediently. He half roused a minute or so later when Giles draped what felt like a blanket over him – and then he was gone.

He woke to something which smelled wonderful, and a faint scratching sound; he opened his eyes and Giles was sitting in a big armchair opposite making notes from one of the huge books. Xander watched him for a minute; he didn’t look up.

“Are you feeling better?”

He squawked with surprise and found himself with a mouthful of cotton; Giles laughed.

“Sorry. I put one of my handkerchiefs under your cheek; you were dribbling. Mrs Polanski can be a little heavy handed with the anaesthetic; I was just the same.”

Xander sat up carefully. “How did you know I was awake? You weren’t looking.” His voice sounded thick and blurry.

Giles raised an eyebrow. “Your breathing changed. How do you feel?”

He thought about it. “Way better,” he admitted. 

“Hungry?”

He was _starving_.

“Cottage pie – you probably call it something else. It’ll be ready in a minute or two. I thought you would be better with nursery food and with something which doesn’t need much chewing. You’re likely to bite the inside of your lip, I’m afraid.”

He didn’t care.

Giles’ tone hardened a little. “On the subject of my first aid box...”

His insides turned over. He’d known – he’d _known_ – that somewhere down the line there would be yelling. He felt his shoulders tighten as he looked at the floor.

“It is really not a good idea to take analgesics without due consideration for safe dosages and for what else you have already taken and over what period. Breaking into my office to make use of my supplies without my knowledge or consent is an abuse of my trust.”

He cringed, still staring at the floor.

“Additionally, you know that the reason I keep the first aid kit is because of Buffy. I may need to offer her medical assistance and it is not unknown for me to require it myself. I cannot afford for the box not to contain what I expect it to.” His voice hardened again. “If you ever do that again, believe me, I will make you regret it.”  

He shrank a little more, waiting for the serious yelling to begin.

It didn’t, and he risked a glance up; Giles was watching him steadily. He dragged in a desperate breath. “I... I didn’t think of any of that. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I swear.”

Giles tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Thank you. In that case we shall say no more about it.” He got up. “If you want the bathroom before we eat, it’s through there.”

Wait... what? Was that it? No yelling? Giles went to the kitchen; Xander fled to the bathroom. He took a moment to look at himself in the mirror; Giles was right, he looked awful. He washed his face and finger combed his hair, which helped a bit; then he opened his mouth and inspected his new dental work.

What he could see of it, which wasn’t much. Mrs Polanski had asked whether he wanted... he frowned as he tried to remember what she had called the different types of filling. The silver metal one, which she said was cheaper, or the white one which was more expensive but would last longer. He’d started to say ‘metal’, or whatever it was called, and Giles had cut across him.

“The white.”

He’d turned his head and taken a breath to object, and Giles had glared at him, and repeated it. “The white. The cosmetic aspects seem to be much more important here than they are in the UK, and anyway, at Xander’s age he wants the longest lasting one. White.” Mrs Polanski had just nodded, as if she had expected as much, and a moment later Xander had been thinking about what she was doing and not about what she was doing it _with_. Now, though, that sickening disloyalty nipped at him again, telling him that his dad would have gone for the cheap option, not the one that looked good or lasted better.

He _refused_ to think about that.

Giles was right: he _did_ bite his lip. Repeatedly. After a couple of minutes of watching him eat, Giles got up, retrieved the handkerchief from the couch, and wordlessly gave it back to him. He blushed: he _could_ usually eat without covering himself in gravy, but Giles returned to his own meal, and Xander's hunger had overcome his embarrassment.

“Better?” enquired Giles, when he had finished his ice cream.

“Yeah. Yeah, lots. I... thank you. For all of it.”

“You’re welcome. I, I’m going on patrol with Buffy presently, but I have time to drive you home first.”

“I could patrol too.”

Giles shook his head. “You look a lot better, but you’re not right yet. Go home and have an early night. Sleep off the anaesthetic. Come and see me in the morning and just this once,” that came with an amused glare, “I’ll give you a note to get your homework excused. Then if you’re feeling up to it, you can come out on patrol tomorrow. If you’ve been in pain for three days it will take more that an hour’s nap and a single meal to set you to rights again. You may feel all right now, but I suspect that you’ll just suddenly run out of go.”

He would have liked to argue but it seemed a little... a little ungrateful after all that Giles had done – and he wasn’t at all sure that the man wasn’t right, so he just nodded, and helped to clear the table and wash the plates.

It felt odd, going home. _He_ felt odd. Disconnected, somehow. It was as if he saw everything the way a stranger would. The way Giles might. The house was a mess, with empty glasses and the occasional bottle... he cringed. Giles’ apartment had been untidy, with books and paper everywhere, but somehow he had no doubt that Giles could lay his hand at once on whatever he was looking for. His mom was stretched out on the couch, pretending to watch whatever soap was on. His dad...

“Where have you been? What time d’you call this?”

Hardly drunk at all then: capable of recognising that Xander had been absent and that it was late. Accusing.

“Mr Giles took me to the dentist.”

“Who?”

“Mr Giles. The school librarian.”

“The English fag? Who does he think he is? He’s got no right!”

Xander opened his mouth angrily to argue and... had a sudden flash of Giles in the library. Of Giles, getting what he wanted – and with a witness – not by fighting, but by giving way. He let his eyes go wide and bewildered.

“He said you said he could. Mrs Cochrane in the office, she said you said it was O.K.”

“What?”

“They said you said that if Mr Giles was worried about me he could deal with it. He took me to his dentist after school.”

Tony Harris stared – and then laughed shortly. “God, he must be stupid if he thought... what did it cost? Does he think I’m gonna pay him? Because I’m not. If he’s too stupid to understand plain English, that ain’t my problem. Did he tell you I’d pay for it?”

Xander shook his head. He wanted his dad to pay Giles back – partly because it was like, _so_ unfair that Giles should have to pay Xander's medical bills, and partly because... He wasn’t quite sure. Because he wanted his dad to _want_ to. Because every time he’d compared Giles and his dad today, Giles had come out in front, and his dad _was_ his dad and Xander wanted to be able to be proud of him. Wanted to feel that Giles was one of the good guys, but he didn’t measure up to Xander's dad. Wanted not to be aware that Giles had asked him half a dozen times today how he was doing, and if he felt better, and his dad hadn’t asked once.

Wanted this not to be so _complicated_.

He slipped away when his dad threw himself into a chair, still muttering about the retard English librarian – Xander couldn’t decide whether to find that funny or to be insulted on Giles’ behalf – and shut himself in his room. He felt off: wired, which was probably whatever Mrs Polanski had poked into his jaw, and reaction to the whole incomprehensible day, and exhausted, which was what Giles had said about suddenly running out of juice. He dropped onto his bed. There was a sudden blast of noise from the TV, and he heard first his father’s voice raised and then his mother’s, high and petulant. He pulled the pillow to his chest. Why were they so... They didn’t care. They didn’t care about _anything_. They didn’t care about each other or – that _hurt_ – about him. He wanted to...

He wanted to feel that they loved him and he couldn’t. He wanted to love them. And he couldn’t. Maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was him. He’d thought that before: maybe they didn’t love him because he wasn’t lovable. Really, only Willow loved him, and he loved Willow, that went without saying, but... he didn’t love his parents. He didn’t even _like_ them much. He was such a bad son: he _should_ love them. He should want to be like them and he _so_ didn’t. He didn’t want to drink too much and never have a real job and fight with his wife.

He was gonna be just like them, though. He was a klutz and a dork, and his grades were... no way was he going to college. He wouldn’t get the grades and he wouldn’t have the funds and he was gonna graduate school and have to get a job. The same sort of dead-end job his dad couldn’t hold down – something that didn’t need anything but a high school diploma. He was gonna end up just like his dad and Giles would despise him. And whoa, where had that come from? Giles had been kind to him and hadn’t yelled much even thought Xander had done something which he should have been yelled at _for_ , and he was grateful on both counts, but why would it matter if Giles despised him?

It did. It did matter. Perhaps... he wondered if he could possibly be like Giles rather than like his dad. Only... No. That would be a no. Giles was all with the brains and the swordfighting and the books and the Watcher-y stuff and no way could Xander ever do anything like that. He couldn’t even manage his own homework. He looked at the pile of stuff from school. Homework. Giles had said he’d write him a note. His parents had never written him a note to get him excused from homework, not even when it had been their fault that he hadn’t done it.

Oh God, he was doing it again. Comparing Giles with his dad. To his dad. He thought irrelevantly that his English class had spent half an hour on the difference between ‘compare with’ and ‘compare to’ and he still didn’t know which one he meant. He bet Giles knew. Giles did know stuff. Giles knew stuff other than the books. Maybe he could be like Giles without the brains? And O.K., without the fighting with swords and crossbows and whatever. ‘Cause there was more than that to Giles. There was the noticing.

Xander thought about that. Giles had seen Xander at least twice – before Registration, had he said, and after second period? – and Xander hadn’t noticed _him_ either time. Giles couldn’t have seen him for more than a couple of seconds on each occasion but he’d noticed that Xander was sick and was getting worse, and he didn’t even _know_ Xander that well. He’d seen enough that when Xander tried to brush him off and go back to class, he’d known Xander was lying. He’d noticed on the way out of school that something more was wrong with Xander; O.K., he hadn’t got what the something was, but he’d noticed. He’d known that Xander was awake without having to look.

Maybe that was part of being a Watcher? That you didn’t just watch out for your Slayer, but you watched, dunno, ordinary stuff too? Maybe that was part of _how_ you watched out for your Slayer? That you noticed anything which wasn’t the same as it had been before? And then maybe that explained Giles and Xander, because Giles would have noticed that the Slayer’s friend wasn’t right, and that might upset the Slayer. Yeah, that made sense. That would be why he had looked after Xander: because it would stop Xander being a distraction to Buffy. And maybe, something in his mind whispered, maybe a _little_ bit because of Xander himself? That hint of disappointment when he caught Xander stealing drugs, disappointment rather than anger, that meant that Giles had thought that Xander was... was better than a thief. That meant that Giles thought _something_ about Xander. Maybe not much, but _something_.

O.K. Giles was looking out for Buffy. So... maybe Xander could, sorta, look out for... well, not for Buffy, because that was Giles’ job, and Xander wasn’t stupid enough to think that Giles would welcome him interfering. But maybe...

Maybe Xander could look out, a bit, for Giles? Because it must be hard for Giles: dumped in a foreign country. And yeah, it wasn’t one where they spoke a foreign language... except that maybe that was almost worse, because sometimes it was like they and Giles were all using the same words but they didn’t mean the same things, and if you were talking a foreign language you would sorta expect that but when they were all talking English, you wouldn’t? And Giles had no family or... or friends or Watcher colleagues or anything. He had a Slayer and a bunch of high school students. That had to be hard. Xander knew about not having real friends and how hard it was.

‘Kay, so what could Xander do? He could... he could watch for the things that Giles didn’t know. That Giles couldn’t be expected to know. Like, Giles had ordered pizza for them all the other night when they were researching in the library; he’d ordered it from the place in the mall, and Xander knew – because it was the sort of thing Xander _did_ know – that Milano’s pizza was better and cheaper, _and_ that they would deliver. Giles had brought cookies one night from the Bakehouse, and Bakehouse cookies were good, but Dolly’s were bigger and they made more sorts. There was no way Giles could be expected to know that sort of thing – but Xander could. Xander did. O.K., it was all small stuff and Xander didn’t fool himself that it was important, but maybe that was the point. If Xander took over some of the stuff that _wasn’t_ important, that meant Giles could look after the stuff that _was_.

He had a Plan, then. He was gonna keep his eyes open and see what Giles needed, and he was gonna be in charge of getting it for him. Giles had been kind, and Xander... Xander wasn’t gonna be like his dad, who didn’t pay his debts. Xander owed Giles, and he was gonna work off what he owed, and maybe... maybe if he tried real hard, Xander didn’t have to turn out like his dad.

Maybe Xander could be just a little bit like Giles.


End file.
